


(I Feel Like I'm) 17 Again?

by Soulhearts



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternative Perspective, Episode: s07e10 Shattered, Gen, Icheb's Perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 21:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16026437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulhearts/pseuds/Soulhearts
Summary: Icheb's eyes fall on the commander and suddenly he can't bring himself to drag his eyes away. He very much feels as though his parents are standing in front of him. And really, that's what they've always been to him. A mother and a father.Set during Shattered (s07e10).





	(I Feel Like I'm) 17 Again?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie to you. Writing fanfiction about Star Trek: Voyager makes me feel as though I'm on crack because, boy, do I get so very high with these emotions - who's cutting onions please. Also, forgive my ending thanks.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this... timestamp?

(I Feel Like I'm) 17 Again?

 

Icheb's stomach does a strange little swoop as his heart jumps into his throat. He can't deny that it's a weird sensation, but the sight of the captain and the commander strolling into astrometrics ― _as though they'd not been gone a day_ ― would do that to anyone, he thinks. The sight of them makes him feel as though he is a child again and all he wants to do is ask them for direction even if he knows that once they walk out those doors, he'll never see them again.

Beside him he hears Naomi's quiet but sharp intake of breath and he knows she's thinking the same thing. The words unwittingly stumble from her mouth, unchecked and filled with emotion.

“Captain?” she asks, as though she's sure this must be a dream. She's always thought most highly of Captain Janeway, Icheb knows. When the woman died, he'd caught her more than once crying in her quarters, but then again, the entire ship had pretty much done the same. Seven and Tuvok seemed the only ones not spontaneously bursting into tears during that time, even if they had both been mourning in private.

The captain ― _will he ever be able to stop thinking of her as his captain?_ _―_ wears a kind expression, but the commander is looking between the two of them as though an alarming revelation is dawning on him.

“I'm sorry,” Janeway says with a soft smile touching the edges of her mouth, “I don't recognise you, Lieutenant.”

Icheb's eyes fall on the commander and suddenly he can't bring himself to drag his eyes away. He very much feels as though his parents are standing in front of him. And really, that's what they've always been to him. A mother and a father. Captain Janeway was always there to push him, to encourage him, to support him whenever he doubted himself, and Commander Chakotay was a rock, a steady and guiding hand, a wink whenever he caught Icheb or Naomi or both of them doing something they shouldn't have. They're standing before him now, the captain as proud as ever, her spine straight and her eyes sharp and bright, the commander more relaxed, his tense shoulders the only sign of his wary confusion.

“It's me,” Naomi exclaims beside him as he continues to drink in the sight of them like a man who's found an oasis in a desert. “Naomi Wildman.”

It's at this moment that Icheb feels he should speak up, if for no other reason than to question their story and to perhaps clear up the uncertainty both sides are clearly feeling.

“How… did you…―?” he starts, stumbling haltingly over his words thanks to the remaining shock that pounds like adrenaline. But Commander Chakotay beats him to his question, his firm but curious voice sending that childish shudder down his spine again.

“Are you Icheb?” the man asks, narrowed eyes laced with more confusion than Icheb has ever before witnessed from him.

The captain looks between them as he swallows and answers with a simple, “yes.”

The silence fills the room for a moment. Naomi, for once in her life, also seems too bewildered to speak, but the moment doesn't last very long because Captain Janeway speaks up and Icheb's eyes slide over to her.

“Something tells me you weren't expecting us,” she states matter-of-factly, her hand resting upon her hip as she looks between the two of them.

“No ma'am,” he replies, the epithet feeling funny on his tongue from lack of use. He hasn't called anyone _ma'am_ or _sir_ for a long time, not since he became Voyager's commanding officer. It's funny to think he now holds the same rank as the man standing before him.

Naomi jumps in before he can think of a kind way to break the news to them, but as is her way, it's not particularly subtle.

“You both died,” she says softly.

“… seventeen years ago…” he adds just as quietly.

The captain and commander share a look, but Icheb was never able to break that code, no matter how many times he saw them exchange whole conversations with single passed expressions. It's no different now.

Commander Chakotay takes one look at him and reads his face like an open book. The man was very good at that.

“The captain and I haven't risen from the grave,” he states with an amused smile before schooling his expression once more. “The ship's been fractured into different time frames.”

Yes, that's right.

Icheb just didn't know people could pass between them. Maybe… Seven's there. Just through those doors. Or Samantha Wildman, Naomi's mother. Or any other number of crew members he'd watched die both before his enlistment and after.

“Thirty-seven, to be exact,” Naomi supplies as he gathers himself and collects his thoughts, swallowing down the traitorous emotions.

“How did you calculate that?” the Captain asks, genuinely astounded by the statement.

Naomi gives a little smile, “we've had seventeen years to upgrade the sensors,” she says leading them closer to the screen. “A chrono-kinetic surge interacted with the warpcore.”

When it becomes clear that Naomi isn't going to elaborate, Icheb takes the time to translate her words for the two of them – he knows the captain took temporal mechanics at the academy, but Commander Chakotay didn't and besides, what they know as basic now was very new seventeen years ago.

“It shattered the space-time continuum aboard the ship.”

“The accident that occurred in your timeframe,” he hears the captain mumble in the commander's direction.

The man nods.

“The question is,” he continues, addressing all of them. “Can we repair the damage?”

“If we could get to a section of the ship that still exists in that time period maybe we could counteract the surge, stop it from happening,” the captain suggests, her eyes sparkling with determination.

Both he and Naomi already know that won't work though.

“That section was the focal point of the surge,” he starts gently. “It seems to have been… obliterated.”

He looks away as their faces fall, he doesn't want to witness their disappointment.

“It's too bad Seven's not here…” Naomi muses sadly.

Icheb can't help but agree, even as the captain appears oblivious to their hurt.

“Seven?” she asks.

Commander Chakotay hangs his head and Naomi's eyes remain fixed on the console in front of her. Apparently the captain and the commander are from different time periods after all. The commander knows who _he_ is, so he's already aware of Seven. But the captain must be from before Seven's arrival on the ship, which puts her time-frame between dry-dock and their fourth year in the Delta quadrant.

The commander speaks on behalf of all of them.

“Someone who knows more about temporal mechanics than any of us,” he clarifies.

“Unfortunately,” Icheb interrupts before Naomi's tears make themselves visible. “She hasn't been found either.”

“Well,” the commander suggests as the captain's gaze lingers on Naomi, struggling to keep herself together at the mention of Seven. “Maybe we can find her in another time-frame.”

As she's always managed to do, the captain knows exactly what to say to pull a smile from Naomi's lips.

“I have an Ensign Samantha Wildman on my crew…” there's an unspoken question there.

“My mother.” Naomi confirms with a smile. Her death is not so raw as Seven's and Icheb knows Naomi is more proud of her mother than anyone.

“Naomi was the first child born on Voyager,” the commander says, giving the captain some context and keeping up a running commentary as his eyes lock with Icheb's.

He offers the commander a smile as the man nods back, “A few years later we rescued Icheb from the borg.”

Suddenly he's standing there seeking her approval of what he's become.

It's ridiculous. Approval from a woman who's not even met him yet.

And still, he straightens his spine as she runs her eyes over his face and searches them for something, though he's not sure what.

Naomi must be feeling exactly the same, because she quickly pipes up.

“When I was little I wanted nothing more than to be the assistant captain.”

Icheb sees the commander smirk out of the corner of his eye and briefly wonders which time-frame the man has come from. Maybe he and Naomi are still children there, perhaps she said the same thing to him that very morning in a prepubescent tone as she did tend to say it to everyone and anyone who would listen.

“We should get moving,” the man says, tapping gently at the captain's elbow.

The exchange isn't unusual, but Icheb momentarily wonders if their relationship would have grown into something more had the two of them had more time.

The captain and the commander turn to leave and suddenly he can't stand to watch them go. Once they walk out of those doors they're gone for good and _god_ he doesn't want them to leave. He wants nothing more than to fall to his knees and beg them to stay. _He wants his family back_.

“Commander,” he ejects, a little louder than necessary perhaps.

The moment man turns, they lock eyes and Icheb suddenly realises he _has_ to let them go. They don't belong here anymore than he belongs there. He racks his brain for something to say, anything. Just to delay the inevitable a little longer. Just a few seconds more.

“…In case you were wondering,” he begins, mentally still floundering. He wants to say something meaningful, to express how much they mean to him. He's never hugged them before, but now he struggles with the idea of letting them slip through his fingers like dust. He wants to wrap his arms around them both and hold them there, but the words to convey all of this evade his tongue.

“I never told Neelix where you hid that cider,” he mumbles, feeling the lankiness in his limbs that he's long since outgrown.

For a second the commander appears mildly bemused, but when the smile grows on his face, the mirth reaching his eyes, pride swells there and Icheb's knees nearly buckle along with his resolve.

He offers the man a small smile in return, but he's not sure how happy it appears.

And with that, a last long look at the both of them and a smile from the captain too, they depart from the room and he watches them go like he is waking from a bittersweet dream.

* * *

A tray lands in front of his own in the mess hall later that day. He's picking at his food and sparing glances at the expansive purple nebula outside, the cloud swirling around the ship all encompassing.

He looks up and sees Naomi, a cross expression on her face as she takes the seat opposite.

“You're brooding,” she states. No room for argument.

He tries it anyway.

“I'm not.”

“You _are,_ ” she presses. “I _know_ when you're brooding, Icheb. Not to mention the fact that you're at _Tuvok's_ table. You never sit here unless there's something on your mind.”

She stabs her fork violently in her salad and shoves it in her mouth.

“Besides,” she says around a mouthful before he can protest. “It doesn't take a genius to work out what's bothering you.”

“You've got me all figured out, huh?” he says, offering her a smile. It deflates her a little.

“You need to talk?” she asks, an ounce of worry lacing her tone.

He shakes his head.

“I'll be fine,” he insists weakly. “It was just… a shock.”

“I know what you mean,” she agrees thoughtfully. “I thought for a moment I was dreaming. I'm still not sure I wasn't.”

“Me too,” he admits, poking at his own salad and the suspicious, green vegetable in it.

They sit in companionable silence for a time, but there are so many questions racing around in his head, it's hard to know where to start. The faces of the captain and the commander swim in the forefront of his mind, both old memories and new, and he thinks about all the stuff he _didn't_ say. Naomi does nothing more than watch him quietly and out of all the things he chooses to say, he picks the one he fears the answer of most.

“Do you think they'd be proud?” he whispers, the sound barely escaping him.

“What?” her eyes jerks up from her food.

“The captain, the commander,” he continues a little louder than before, looking up for a moment before dropping his gaze back. “Do you think they'd be proud of us?”

Her face melts compassionately as she reaches across the table with her free hand and covers his, still holding the metallic fork between his thumb and forefinger.

“I know they were,” she avers with a firm incontestable nod. He glances up at her, but is only met with honest eyes. “They may not have been the people we remembered when they… died… but they were still Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay.”

“I feel like an idiot,” he admits, to her astonishment. “Like a child.”

Dropping his fork he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, her hand falling away.

“I'm the commander of Voyager now and yet all I wanted to do was beg them to stay, to come back.”

Naomi's plaintive concern only grows, but her reply seems measured and understanding.

“I think… if any of us had that chance, we'd do the same,” she confesses.

“I can't honestly say I wasn't about to stop them from walking out that door…” he continues. “But in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it. Now I'm second guessing every decision I've ever made.”

She eyes him carefully, but before she can say anything, he spits out the question that's left a sour taste on his tongue ever since he watched the captain and commander walk away.

“Did I do the right thing?”

His voice is quiet and it wobbles with weakly concealed emotion as he asks. There's no one else on this ship he can lean on like this. He's the commander, everyone looks to him for guidance and strength, even her, sometimes, but she's known him the longest and they'd spent so much time together when they were children, even with the five year age gap. There's no one he's closer to.

She gauges him as she thinks upon his question, but ever Neelix's godchild, she answers with carefully considered words.

“Do you really think you had a choice in the first place?”

It's not what he _wants_ to hear, but he can't deny the truth in her statement either.

“No,” he admits on a sigh. “Not really. They would have done anything to fix the continuum and I've never had the strength to go against their orders.”

“Me neither,” Naomi smiles fondly, her eyes glistening as she reminisces about the past. “They always seemed so… so _sure_. They always knew exactly what to do. They looked so in control of themselves all the time, always dignified, no matter the situation.”

He laughs a little under his breath as he agrees silently.

“I sure do miss them though,” she admits after a beat. “And Seven. And Mom.”

Suddenly, the lights in the mess hall dim and Icheb becomes keenly aware that they're the only two left eating when Neelix appears from around the galley.

“Alright you two?” he asks, the crows feet around his eyes crinkling.

 _Seventeen years is a long time_ , Icheb's brain reminds him as he watches Neelix scratch at the grey hairs on his chin.

“Yes,” he says when Naomi shoots him a glance that asks the same question. “Just a long day.”

Neelix has never been fooled by him.

“You're sure?”

He offers the man a smile, meant to be reassuring but possibly a little too tight around the edges.

“Yes, thank you.”

Naomi stands, abandoning her food.

“I should really get some sleep,” she declares, offering Ichep a way out from under Neelix's discerning gaze as she gives her godfather a hug and bids him goodnight.

“Yes, me too,” Icheb agrees, hauling himself to his feet in time to follow Naomi from the mess hall.


End file.
